Losing Heart
by konfabulate
Summary: When a redhaired stranger shows up in his small town, Demyx rolls with the punches.
1. Beckoning

Demyx checked the clock. 11:35.

Blowing out his cheeks as he exhaled, he slid off his stool and hunted around for a clean mug. His dish-washing procrastination was beginning to show, as it took him five minutes to locate a mug that didn't have tea residue in the bottom. Eventually he emerged from beneath the counter, triumphantly shedding a pile of old newspapers, and set the blue-and-red porcelain on the counter.

Five minutes later he sat on his stool, sorting through his tea bags with his feet propped on the counter, water boiling away behind him. Nights at the Roost were slow in the summer, at least at night, because the humidity drove thoughts of hot coffee and tea out of everyone's minds. Elvide never listened to Demyx's suggestions of selling iced drinks to increase revenue, so here he was on a Friday evening, ankles crossed atop the counter, with the minutes dragging by at the rate of frozen tree sap.

Not that there was much else to do in the town. Lost in between a desert and a river, Mounsid was little more than a dried-out husk of a town where everyone was tired and the dust blanketed all ambition. Demyx was young, and so his desire to escape to a bigger city still clung with him; he wanted to be like the husky-throated musicians on his precious records, playing his guitar beneath lyrics about love and broken hearts. It was a guitar that he pulled out from under the counter now, his much cherished instrument that represented his hopes and dreams: the polished wood settled easily into the curve of his lap, and his fingers drifted over the frets without needing to look, so familiar were the strings. He plucked one quavering note and closed his eyes blissfully, strumming aimless chords that lit up the empty coffee shop.

The teakettle whistled behind him. Demyx's eyes popped open; he slid the guitar onto the countertop with a hollow wooden thunk and grabbed his mug. He had just taken a ginger sip, hardly giving the teabag time to brew, when he turned around and discovered a red-haired man sitting at the counter.

Demyx spit out his mouthful of tea in surprise. "Shit," he stammered, "sorry," and immediately fumbled for a cleaning rag. They were all dirty, in accordance with his tea mugs, and when he at last located one that was only slightly damp he looked up to find that the redhead was looking at him intently. He was wearing an odd black cloak that looked like nothing he'd ever seen anyone wearing before, but when he unzipped it and slung it over the stool beside him, he exposed ordinary jeans and a t-shirt beneath. "Er," Demyx said awkwardly, and turned his attention to furiously mopping up the tea all over the counter. Thank god he hadn't actually gotten it _on _the customer – who had managed to sneak in without ringing the little bell over the doorway, so no wonder he'd scared the living shit out of Demyx. He made a mental note to check that it was still attached later.

"What can I get for you?" he tried, smiling at the customer lop-sidedly. He didn't appear to be much older than Demyx, so maybe he'd be nice and not hold the accidental tea-spraying against him. It was never good to be unprofessional around a potentially new customer – because certainly Demyx had never seen this man around town before. He would have remembered that hair.

The stranger studied the menu above Demyx's head for a moment. "Pumpkin Chai, thanks," he finally responded, pronouncing the words carefully in a dramatic bass. Demyx liked the sound of his voice; he sounded like he had the voice of an actor, and he wanted to make the guy say more, to see if his suspicion was true.

"Sure thing," Demyx said brightly and turned to put the heat back on under his half-empty teakettle. He pulled a mug off the shelf – one of the shop's, not one of his own, so it was thankfully clean – slipped a packet of tea out of the box on the counter, set them both down, and slid back onto his stool to wait. The redhead appeared to be eyeing his guitar with a certain amount of interest.

"What's that?" Red, as Demyx had mentally decided to call him, indicated the guitar with a tilt of his chin. "It's different than what we've got at home."

"I – " Demyx stopped, then frowned. Where was this guy from, anyway? "It's a guitar," he answered, deciding to humor him. "An instrument. You play it like this…" Hooking his feet around the rungs of the stool, he pulled the guitar into his lap. His fingers hovered over the frets for a second, and then he launched into the opening riffs of "Revolutionary," the biggest song on the radio at the moment as well as a guitar solo that never failed to impress his friends.

But it didn't work on Red; the guy looked as ambivalent as if he'd never heard the song in his life. "Cool," he said after not very long, cutting over Demyx's playing as if he'd completely lost interest. For a moment, Demyx was hurt by the curt brush-off, but he pushed that emotion aside as easily as he pushed his guitar away down the counter.

"Let me get your chai," he murmured, swiveling around to grab the teakettle, which hadn't whistled yet, but he needed something to do. God, they really needed to get rid of their whistling teakettles, anyway. He pushed the steaming mug across the counter at Red and decided now would be a good time to wash all those dirty mugs.

The running water in the sink filled the silence as Red sipped at his tea; Demyx watched the stranger out of his peripheral vision the whole time, growing increasingly more uncomfortable as he realized that Red hadn't once stopped watching him with a keen, bright-eyed sort of interest. At last, Demyx couldn't take it anymore. "So, where are you from?" he asked as conversationally as he could, not wanting to betray his discomfort. "I haven't seen you around here before, and it's a damn small enough town."

At that, the redhead's eyes narrowed slightly, almost calculatingly, and he grinned. "Well, I'm not from around here." His fingers flexed around the mug as if they were restless to be doing something else. "But I could show you where I _am _from. Want to come?"

Demyx paused, his back still turned, with one hand buried in soapy water. This guy was really weird. "I'm still on work," he began, though that was probably not the best answer, as he began to turn around, "and I don't think – "

Instantly he jolted back in shock. In the middle of his shop – right in midair – was…was…he didn't even know if there was a word on this planet to describe it. It was like a _portal,_ but there were no edges, no wood or metal or glass – just…blackness, like what a black hole must look like, that seemed to suck away the light around its edges. Demyx backed up until he bumped into the back counter, his fingers unconsciously tightening around the edge in a death grip. "What – what the _fuck _is that?"

Red grinned casually. "It's the way to where I live. Come on, it won't bite." He extended one hand, fingers curled slightly in beckoning.

Despite himself, Demyx was edging around from behind the counter. That _thing _was too mind-boggling to not tempt his insatiable curiosity. "But what is it?" he asked dubiously, only fear and common sense keeping him from reaching out to touch it. It looked like it would devour his hand whole.

"It's a gateway." Red sounded like he was patiently explaining something to a not-very-bright person. "Do you want to come or not?"

Demyx looked over his shoulder, shaken. "I – but – I don't even know your name!"

The stranger laughed. "My name is Axel," he said, "got it memorized?" and pushed Demyx through.


	2. Momentum

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He thought he could see black, but it wasn't seeing, it was the absence of sight – he couldn't feel his legs, arms, neck – couldn't open his mouth to scream – couldn't feel his feet to run – he didn't exist, nothing more than a detached consciousness trapped in the emptiest of spaces –

– and then oxygen rushed back into his deflated lungs with a _whoosh_, and there was solid ground under his feet, and he collapsed with a bruising thud onto an unforgiving surface. When Demyx tentatively squinted his eyes open, slitting them against the glare of sunlight, it was only to discover that Axel was standing next to him perfectly unharmed and with a vaguely amused expression.

"Won't bite, huh?" Demyx croaked as he levered himself onto his feet, his voice as unsteady as his legs. Maybe he had been screaming after all.

Axel shrugged eloquently, one-shouldered. "Eh, you get used to it," he answered dismissively, withdrawing the hand he'd offered to help Demyx up when Demyx did it by himself. "You're alive, aren't you?"

"Barely." Demyx dusted off his rag-worn jeans with his palms and turned in a slow circle, taking in his unfamiliar surroundings with steadily increasing awe.

No wonder it had been so bright when he'd opened his eyes: three suns perforated the pale pink sky, surrounding the landscape in a wash of light that was disconcerting until Demyx realized it was because there were no shadows. They had landed on a strip of what looked like pavement but was too smooth and seamless to be made of concrete, alongside a roadway narrower than any roads back home – and it was suspended in the air the same way as an overpass, with glass-and-steel buildings beneath, but when he stepped to the edge to look over there were no supports beneath. The whole thing was hanging in midair, held up by some force he couldn't see. Demyx stepped back, dizzy.

"I'm either dreaming," he announced, still eyeing the expanse of glittering city before them, "or I've gone mad, or I've somehow gotten dropped in the middle of a fairy story." Demyx ground the heels of his palms against his eyes, but when he opened them again, it hadn't gone away. "Hey, Axel, you a fairy or something?"

He turned around and stopped again. Axel was leaning against the biggest, most beautiful motorcycle Demyx had ever seen, its motor purring impatiently: all polished chrome and ebony paint, although the elaborate flames were a bit too clichéd for Demyx's tastes. Suddenly the narrow width of the freeway made more sense. "Nah," Axel shot back, grinning. "Not quite." His jeans tightened across his thighs as he slung himself easily over the seat, fitting into it as easily as if it were part of him; his black-gloved hands tightened around the handlebars, and the motor throbbed. "Coming?"

Demyx opened his mouth and then shut it again. He'd never been on a motorcycle – a fact that now seemed both a shame and a terrible danger. _You don't even know this guy, don't do it, _said his brain, and "Yeah," said his mouth, as he stepped forward and gingerly slid into the seat behind Axel. The redhead gunned the motor with that smile of his.

"Hold on," he called, and the motorcycle bucked to life and raced away down the highway.

"Hold onto what?" Demyx was screaming, but the wind snatched his words away and left them far behind. He clamped his fingers around Axel's shoulders white-knuckled, but that was hardly a reassuringly safe handhold, so with a thousand misgivings he slid his arms down and wrapped them around Axel's waist. This was a slightly more secure position, but Demyx had qualms about grabbing the waist of a strange guy.

The curious and easily distracted mind of the young man, however, was soon diverted by the landscape they were zooming past. Buildings of spun glass and spidery steel melted away into steep hills, coated with what looked like tall grass but was red instead of green: in their valleys grew copses of trees, and at their crests flourished expanses of mustard-coloured flowers. Beyond it all glittered a vast and horizonless ocean, as rosy-hued as the sky overhead. If he unfocused and let it slide by, everything became a washed-together slur of colour, vaguely reminiscent of shape and form but lacking both.

The highway took a steep dive downwards. Demyx screeched and wrapped his arms tighter around Axel's ribcage as the motorcycle roared down the incline, Axel as exuberantly carefree and gunning the engine as if he didn't realize how easy it would be for them to _fall off and get totally killed. _Clenching his eyes shut and grinding his teeth, Demyx bowed his head and waited for the inevitable.

Eventually, however, he felt a distinct decrease in the sensation that he was about to go flying over the handlebars; he took the risk of opening his eyes a hairline crack, and discovered that the highway had leveled out once again and now ran through the hills with the scarlet-coloured grass fringing the sides. Through the gaps in the hilltops Demyx could see the glint of the sea. Within minutes, it was that same sea that they approached, the not-quite-cement giving way to sand that the spinning wheels beneath them kicked up in a fine spray not unlike water.

Demyx was beginning to be afraid that Axel would drive straight into the ocean – it wouldn't surprise him, though, with everything else that had happened, if water was suddenly as solid as ground – when the redhead pulled up sharply and spun the bike to the side, spraying a wave of sand across the beach. As soon as they were stopped Demyx disentangled himself from Axel and clambered off, hopping several steps to his right before he regained his balance. He wanted nothing to do with that terrifying machine anymore.

Axel was slower about getting off, but when he did, he let the motorcycle collapse sideways into the sand with a whump, not even looking backwards at it. He strode past Demyx without a look for him, either: in a few paces he broke into a headlong sprint, his feet leaving sharp-edged imprints in wet sand, and launched himself arms-first into the most graceful swan dive Demyx had ever seen. He vanished beneath the water with a magnificent splash.

Demyx sat down heavily on the sand. "I'm trapped on a beach with a crazy guy in a different world," he tried. That didn't sound realistic even to him. "I'm dreaming that I'm trapped on a beach with a crazy guy?" A few yards away, Axel resurfaced, red hair plastered down and dripping magnificently. He grinned and waved enthusiastically at Demyx, who stared at him as if he'd completely lost his mind, and began to wade out of the water while attempting to tie back the length of his sodden hair at the same time.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Axel collapsed beside him, oblivious to the amount of sand that plastered to his now-transparent shirt. "Your oceans are blue. That's weird. I like pink better."

Demyx eyed him. "…Yeah. Okay. So, where are we, exactly? And why the hell am I here?"

For a long moment, Axel didn't answer. Arms crossed over his hips, he peeled his soggy t-shirt up and over his head, leaving streaks of salt water across his cheeks, and tossed the wadded-up fabric towards his bike. He licked his lips as though he were going to speak and turned his gaze out over the ocean, over the slender dashes of whitecaps and dark splotches that were birds bobbing on the current. The crash and ebb of cascading waves pounding the sand filled the landscape, a fittingly serene sound for the empty expanse of sand and sea. Demyx noticed that there was a spiky-wheeled tattoo around Axel's navel.

At last, Axel closed his eyes and leaned back on his elbows. "I got bored," he murmured, as if that excuse should be perfectly satisfactory. "So I went world-hunting, and I found you. I thought you'd like to see my world…don't you like it?" He sounded hurt, even petulant,

Demyx tore his eyes away from the tattoo – it wasn't polite to stare at any part of a person, even if he really did want to know what that was – and blew out his cheeks in exasperation. "It's lovely. I love it. I love everything. But I'm not supposed to be here – what are my parents going to think, what's my _boss _going to think – "

"Oh, don't be such an alarmist," interrupted the redhead. "As much fun as that would be, I don't intend to keep you forever. I'll take you home eventually."

Eventually. How reassuring. Demyx pulled his knees up to his chest and looped his arms over them, surveying the ocean; Axel seemed momentarily content to lie there with his arms crossed behind his head and ignore Demyx completely. After a few minutes, Demyx turned his attention to the three suns overhead.

"Does it ever get dark here?" he asked, his curiosity aroused once more. The sky had the colour of a sunset at home, but with three suns, he wasn't sure how sunsets worked. It seemed to him that in order for night to actually occur, all three of them would have to have set at once, and the odds of that happening were approximately one out of…a lot.

"For a few hours a day," Axel answered immediately, clearly finding this question much easier to answer, "in the end of the last quarter of the year. But it gets all dusky at this time of year, because Cih actually does set for about six hours," and indeed, one of the suns was halfway past the horizon, and the salty sea air was still bright but hazier. Both of them subsided into silence for a long stretch of silence, interrupted only by the steady surf, to watch the fluorescent orb descend beyond the sea.

At last Demyx stretched, sighed, and flopped back on the sand with his arms outspread. "It's nice here," he commented lazily, "and I think I might not even mind being abducted through a warphole in the space-time continuum by an insane red-haired man anymore."

Beside him, Axel grinned. "Oh, good. I'm complimented." All of a sudden, startling Demyx, he flipped himself upright like he was made of elastic instead of muscle and sinew. "Hey! Want to see something awesome?"

It would have been nice to have fallen asleep here on the beach, in the barely-humid warmth and with the ocean only a running leap away, but ruefully Demyx realized that would not happen. "Okay," he agreed amiably, burrowing his elbows into the sand beneath him and levering himself into sitting. "Do I have to move?"

Axel only shook his head. All the laughter and mischief disappeared from his face, to be replaced by something like studious concentration: his eyes narrowed to half-lidded, and his body was already swaying with an energy akin to a runner at a starting line. Demyx found himself caught up in fascination, despite himself.

With a sudden, strange movement, a twist of his wrists and a flick of his fingers, Axel brought his hands forward suddenly gripping two life-sized versions of the object tattooed on his stomach. At once he began to twirl them, shifting them nimbly from fingertip to fingertip in a spinning whirl of red and white, the twin discs shifting from side to side as Axel's body gyrated in the same circular rhythm. His eyes were half-closed with concentration; he shifted them from hand to hand, never breaking the rhythm of their spinning, so fast that they became a reddish blur in his dexterous fingers.

All at once, Axel swung his arm straight up in a violent swing and launched first one, then the other, far into the air above his head. They spun up, and up, towards the empty rose sky overhead – and then at the peak of their descent, both discs burst into flame. Axel's body was a taut line, arms outstretched and fingers straining above his head, when they hurtled back down: but he caught them without them seeming to break their rate of descent, only slowing, as his body dipped and swayed with their momentum. His slim hands were indifferent to the flames and kept up their rhythm, now the roaring of fire devouring air accompanying him, as he tossed the flaming discs from hand to hand, arched his back dramatically to exchange them behind him, tossed one over his head and catching in on the other hand to spin two at once. The flames threw Axel's face into sharply shadowed definition, outlining the harsh look of intense focus that occupied his features. Abruptly, the rapidly shifting rhythm of his body stopped: he hurled the flaming discs into the air once more, this time together, spinning faster than ever in side-by-side symmetry of one another, and then they plunged earthward with a velocity that threatened to impale Axel on the spot and send him into flame – but his outstretched fingers caught them again, and at the same instant the flames went out and the discs vanished the same as they had appeared.

Demyx had forgotten to notice when his jaw had slackened. He gaped at Axel like the small-town idiot he was, his mind overloaded by the sheer amazing display he'd just witnessed. "Ah," he began, and cleared his throat hurriedly when his voice cracked. "That. That was…that was cool."

Axel was pretending to be disinterested, inspecting his hands (presumably for charring), but the way his face lit up was unmistakable. "Glad you liked it," he returned casually, lowering his hands and grinning sardonically at Demyx. "That's my favourite routine. Maybe I'll show you another one sometime. If you come back, that is."

Demyx carefully levered himself to his feet. "How, exactly, do I come back?" Dusting off the back of his jeans with his palms, he turned to discover that the mysterious dark portal had reappeared, and Axel was looking at him in a profoundly different way – almost with hunger, or expectancy, as if there was something else he really, really wanted, and hadn't gotten yet. Demyx couldn't decide if the portal or the look made him more uncomfortable.

The intensity of Axel's gaze didn't lessen. "Oh, I'll come find you," he announced cheerfully and gestured dramatically at the swirling vortex. Demyx took a deep breath, shut his eyes very tightly, and stepped through.

It was only once he'd taken a few deep breaths, picked up his now-cold tea with a shaking hand, and wondered for several minutes if it had all been a crazy dream, that he noticed the black cloak draped across one of the stools at the bar.


	3. Unsteady

I gotta say, the reviews are quite a pick-me-up. Thanks, guys. :

By the way, I really can't turn chapters out this quickly – these are only going up so fast because I had them written before I started posting on FFN – so after this one, you'll have to wait. Especially because I have finals to finish. Sorry.

-

Demyx's feet itched all week. School had already been out for a month; his friends were on vacation, or they were in summer school, and some of them had even taken a road trip together up the river. He'd been jealous that they had gotten to leave Mounsid and see something besides dust and heat mirages, until Axel had shown up and taken him to a different world; and then he pitied them that they weren't here to come with him the next time. If there was a next time, though, because despite what Axel had said when they'd parted, it had been eight days and he hadn't come back.

An odd thing had happened one night after he'd come home from work. The discarded black cloak that had been left in the café was hanging on the back of his closet door; he'd hung it there to look at, to remind him that the world with three suns had really existed. He'd gone over for what seemed like the hundredth time, just to touch the black cloth, to see if he could evoke something stronger from his already fading memories – a smell, a sound, a feeling, anything. But the instant his fingers brushed the cloak, everything disintegrated: it hit the floor in a pile of threads and the clinking of metal, as the zipper and chains fell apart into their original pieces. Demyx knelt, shocked into silence, and sifted through the remnants with his fingertips.

They ended up in a little bag that he kept in the back pocket of his jeans everywhere he went. He could feel it now, digging into his tailbone, as he sat on his stool strumming his guitar for the eight customer-less night in a row. After the first two days, the nerve-thrumming anticipation of Axel's return that had filled him was gone; now he was just bored and only faintly hopeful. Demyx was absorbed by his guitar instead, not in the mood for tea or the book he'd brought with him, carefully practicing the intricate fingering for a song he'd been writing. He was humming it under his breath, trying a few words with the tune, when the edge of his periphery went dark.

This time he noticed the soft hiss of displaced air when Axel stepped through the eddying darkness into the shop. Demyx couldn't stop his heart from racing as he turned to face the redhead, slinging his guitar onto the counter and trying to act nonchalant. "I thought you were never going to come back," he commented casually.

Axel seemed preoccupied. He turned in a circle, looking narrow-eyed around the shop as if he was searching for something, without looking quite at Demyx. "Hey, didn't I leave my coat here yesterday?" he asked, glancing at Demyx briefly before hopping the counter to look behind it.

"Oh!" Demyx hopped upright and began to dig into his back pocket for the little bag, when that last word registered. "Wait – yesterday? It's been a fucking week since you showed up and kidnapped me, asshole."

Unperturbed by the insults, Axel popped up from behind the counter, a box of vanilla tea in one hand. "Time doesn't really work between the worlds. Sorry you had to wait so long for me. Can I take this with me?"

Demyx paused with his mouth open, and then gave up. He didn't know how to argue with someone who wasn't even fazed by anything he said. "Yeah, fine. Whatever. Um, your coat…it kind of…well." He held out the bag, a little shamefaced. "It…disintegrated. I don't know what happened, I swear."

"Fuck!" Axel swept the bag out of his hand and peered into it, dismayed. "Damn it. I should've remembered. Xemnas is gonna be pissed." He stuffed the bag into the back of the heavy canvas-like black pants he wore low around his hips, topped by a dark olive turtleneck, as if he'd just come from the snow.

Demyx plucked restlessly at his guitar strings, watching the other boy. "Who's Xemnas?" he wanted to know suddenly, wondering at the jealousy that sprung up at the thought that he wasn't the only one who had had Axel waltz into his life. Perturbed, he squashed the feeling.

The redhead waved the question away without answering and snapped his fingers crisply. The portal appeared again in midair and Demyx jumped: he was never going to get used to that thing appearing out of nowhere. "Come on, we're going somewhere else today." Axel leaned forward conspiratorially, hands on his hips. "No motorcycle, trust me," he added, although the wicked smile on his lips said _don't._

But by now Demyx was too eager to see a new world to worry about trusting Axel, and he stepped forward without a second thought.

-

This time it was easier. He held his breath and didn't try to open his nonexistent eyes; instead of feeling the nothingness, he conjured memories of the pain of a bursting guitar blister, of the spicy sweetness of spiced tea, of snowflakes alighting wet and pinprick-cold on his forehead. He emerged from the nowhere-land upright and on his own two feet.

And immediately sank into a good foot of snow. "_Shit,_" Demyx hissed when the cold hit him and began a little agonizing dance of frozen toes. Axel materialized beside him a split second later and waved away the vortex with an impatient gesture; the practicality of his warm clothes and ridiculously tall boots was suddenly much more apparent. He brushed snowflakes off his pants unconcernedly, ignoring Demyx.

"Isn't it lovely?" Axel sighed, theatrically stretching out his arms to encompass the fullness of the landscape. They stood in a clearing amongst a copse of trees that looked like pines, dark green beneath their petticoats of snow, but had perfectly circular leaves that grew symmetrically from each branch. The sky above was black with night, and although Demyx knew little of the constellations of his own home, he recognized immediately that the stars pinpricking the dark cloth of the sky were foreign to him. Everything was blanketed in pristine snow that had never been touched, immaculately blanketing the ground in rolling mounds that pooled in blue shadows and milky crests: starlight glittered on needle-sharp icicles that hung off of branches, bushes, and the eaves of the small house that perched in the snow not ten feet from where they stood.

Demyx could barely register the beauty of it all, as his watering eyes were rimed with a thin ring of ice. "Lovely," he agreed nonetheless, tucking his arms in tight to his lean body for warmth. "Might I ask that we go inside?"

Grinning broadly, the redhead reached over and patted Demyx comfortingly between the shoulderblades. "Don't worry, I wouldn't leave you out here to freeze," he pronounced, and began to tramp through the snow towards the light spilling out from under the door. Demyx followed, not entirely sure whether to believe him.

The warm air inside hit Demyx all in a rush, instantaneously thawing his icy cheeks and frozen eyelashes. Axel edged around the furniture to kneel in front of the fireplace as Demyx closed the door against the cold and took a moment to scrub the frost from his cheekbones; when he looked up, a purring fire blazed away contentedly in the hearth where only ashes had been before. Demyx blinked, took a curious step forward, and squinted at the flames, but Axel turned to meet his gaze with a purely innocent look.

"Look," whispered the redhead, sliding to his feet and going to stand before the window. He leaned forward until his forehead rested against the frosty glass. "It's beautiful. The world is asleep beneath its blanket, held in suspension until the sun returns to bring it back to life…"

Demyx followed, coming to stand beside him. "Very poetic," he commented, though internally he was a little wistful that he couldn't appreciate the immediate beauty of the world the way Axel seemed to. "Where are we, incidentally?"

Axel seemed not to hear him, eyes unfocused. At last he turned, left the window, and went to an ornate wooden cabinet on the other side of the room. "This world is called Demura," he answered, bending over to retrieve something from inside that clinked hollowly. "It's beautiful because the people ruined it. Now it's always cold, and the sun will never actually be able to melt the ice." When he straightened up, his face was stony.

Demyx didn't know quite what to say, caught at a loss for words. At last he edged across the room and slid to the floor. "Oh," he said finally, sitting back on his heels. "I guess…well, the same thing is kind of happening in my world." He sank into silence, uncomfortable at Axel's sudden change of demeanor.

The man turned and pushed the cabinet closed with his heel; dangling from his fingertips was a bottle, sloshing with some dark amber liquid that looked suspiciously like liquor. "You look cold," Axel informed him, easing himself down onto the floor beside Demyx and stretching his long legs out in front of him. "This'll warm you up damn fast." Raising the bottle to his lips, Axel yanked the top off with his teeth and threw his head back in a harsh swig. He passed the bottle to Demyx and dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, dark with drink.

Demyx took it gingerly, like it might explode in his hands. The closest he'd ever come to alcohol was a few sips of beer at a furtive junior prom afterparty last year, and he didn't really want to get drunk; yet something in him didn't want to look weak in front of Axel, so he raised the bottle to his lips and took a burning mouthful.

It tasted like hell but he swallowed anyway. "So," he began, trying to bring up something to talk about, "do you know why your coat totally crumbled like that? It freaked me out."

Axel took a contemplative sip of the liquid and shoved it back across the floor at Demyx. "I've got this theory, see," he started slowly, "that stuff made in one world can't exist for very long in another. Unless they're mirror worlds, but there aren't that many of those. Like, my coat didn't turn to dust or anything– it just fell apart into what it was made out of. The workmanship didn't belong in your world, so it couldn't exist. But then I guess you must have the same materials in your world as the stuff it was made out of, otherwise it probably would have actually turned to dust."

Somehow Demyx had managed to drink a good quarter of the bottle while Axel was talking, absorbed as he was. A pleasant humming had started up in the back of his skull; he couldn't imagine why he had thought it tasted so bad. "I guess that makes sense." He took a last long swallow and offered the bottle to Axel again. "Does that mean I can't ever bring my guitar with me?"

The redhead shrugged. "Maybe you could – how long did it take for the coat to fall apart?" His speech was a little slurred around the edges, sloppy and lazy, just like the feline way he sprawled his lean body out before the fire.

Demyx had to stop and think to remember how long it had been. "Uh…three…no, four days. Yeah. So I could bring my guitar for one trip? 'Cause I'd like to play for you. Sometime. Hm." He lost his train of thought and reached for the abandoned bottle, slurping a good amount of liquor and not noticing when some of it slopped around his mouth.

Axel nodded lazily without answering and flopped back onto the carpet. Demyx looked at him for a moment, then decided that position looked decidedly comfortable, and followed suit; for awhile, only the crackling of the fire filled the air.

Then Axel eased himself up on one elbow and looked over at Demyx. Demyx had closed his eyes to bask in the fiery alcohol running through his veins, but at the rustle of shifting cloth beside him, he opened them again. Axel was looking down at him in a decidedly peculiar manner. Frowning, Demyx opened his mouth to ask _what, _but then Axel forestalled anything of the kind by kissing him soundly.

He tasted like brandy and cigarette smoke, and Demyx was too shocked to move or respond for a moment – and then he twisted his head aside and shoved Axel off with both hands. Axel fell back onto the carpet with an "_oof_" of surprise and just sat there for a moment, looking at him bemused and a little disappointed.

Demyx's head was spinning. "The hell was that?" he protested, struggling upright. The fire was warm and the alcohol made him sluggish, but even through his haze, he knew that he wasn't going to let Axel pull shit like that. "You some kind of pervert? Is that why you brought me here?" Beyond his feet, the fire popped indignantly.

The redhead's face clouded over. "I'm not a _pervert,_" he spat, "and I brought you here because I like having someone to talk to. And you seemed bored." He picked up the nearly-empty bottle, contemplated it for a moment, and then pushed it violently away from him across the hearth tiles; it tipped over and spilled its contents into the grate, flaring the fire up with a hiss and a _whoosh_. "Fine, whatever. I won't ask anything from you that you don't want." Axel turned away haughtily and stared into the flames.

"What, you don't want me enough to try again?" Demyx shot back, and covered his mouth the instant he realized he'd said it. He didn't know where that had come from.

Axel's head swiveled around. He flipped his body and crawled hands-and-knees towards Demyx; with his long body, he loomed over the smaller boy and forced Demyx to crane his neck back to meet his eyes. "Don't be dumb," he snorted, and sat back on his heels. "I'm just a nice guy, you know? Don't want to disrespect other people's wishes."

It was probably just the alcohol talking, but Demyx felt very bold all of a sudden. "How's this for a wish, then?" he murmured, and leaned forward clumsily to kiss Axel. He missed and landed more on the corner of Axel's mouth than actually on his lips, but Axel just laughed a little and reached up.

"Whoa there, cowboy," he grinned, cupping Demyx's jaw. "Here – like this – " He pulled Demyx in at the same time that he leaned forward, and this time their lips met with a little more coordination. Axel pried Demyx's lips apart gently with his tongue, and Demyx was so surprised that he lost his balance and collapsed forward onto Axel's body; they fell with a surprised laugh, rolling, catching at sleeves and shoulders to hold onto each other. When they stopped rolling, Demyx's shoulderblades and elbows and tailbone aching, Axel was on top.

His smile was feral, and more than a little worrisome, as he straddled Demyx's hips and settled his elbows on either side of the blond's head. "Let me know when you're not comfortable with this," he whispered, his breath hot and ghostly over Demyx's skin, making the boy twitch. Smirking wider, Axel leaned down and nipped at the point of Demyx's chin, sliding one hand up to twine into his close-cropped hair.

Demyx responded by grabbing a handful of red hair and yanking Axel down into a rough kiss. "Not like I've never kissed someone before," he protested, wriggling a little as Axel reached up to undo the top button of his shirt. "Give me some credit. I'm just completely fucking wasted."

For a moment, there was a slightly wistful look in Axel's eyes; and then it was gone, so quickly it might not have been there at all. "Okay, but anything more than kissing?" he challenged, flattening his palm against Demyx's breastbone.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "No," Demyx admitted, feeling less embarrassed about the fact than he might normally have been. "So shoot me. On second thought, don't, although if I wake up in the morning and flip out because I've been sleeping with a guy you should probably shoot me then."

Axel's nuzzling, explorative kisses along his jawline stopped. Then, slowly and stiffly, he climbed off of Demyx and backed away. His eyes were flat. "I would not want to subject you to anything that would upset you," he said slowly, his voice unsettlingly careful and emotionless, for a man who was always so expressive and unhindered by his words.

Demyx gaped at him for a moment. "No!" He rolled over and lunged unsteadily across the floor. "No. I'm an idiot. That's not what I meant." Trying to keep the room from spinning, he tilted his head up and very carefully pressed his mouth to Axel's.

Axel barely responded until several moments had passed, and then only reluctantly. He pulled back with the stoniness in his face slightly softened. "Let's leave it at kissing for tonight," he finally said quietly, turning his head away. "You should go home."

He waved his hand without his usual flair and the portal materialized. Demyx winced.

"Fine," he answered, subdued. "I'll see you…whenever."

The coffee shop was colder that night than he'd ever remembered it being before.


End file.
